I sometimes think Angles City is one vast irony - a city of contradictions. It is a place that by all rights should have withered and died after its raison ‘d’etre - the USA’s Clark Field - closed. But somehow it has shaken itself out of lethargy and got up and is suddenly grander and more ‘in your face’ than it ever was. It is growing and getting brasher by the day. In fact it is a perfect example to the rest of what the crumbling Philippines should do.
I have known AC for over a decade but lived there for only three years but in those years much has changed - there are raft of new hotels and several more on the way. There are several new swanky bars in and around the lower Fields area, and that area is now a walking street - well of sorts this is PI after all! There are several new condo buildings and the first such place next door to the relatively new Wild Orchid is sold out with the units reselling at a premium. Clark Field, now known as Manila Clark, is gaining more and more flights and is now connected direct to most nearby Asian countries and thankfully Tiger Air has now started in competition to the appalling Cebu Pacific on the Bangkok route - no more midnight travel to Bangkok. Everything in Balibagio which is the small part of AC that contains Fields, its nightlife and ex pat enclave should be rosy - but it ain’t.
Firstly this is the Philippines and if anything does not need fixing you can be sure somebody will arrive to fix it - or more precisely every leach and blood sucker in the country knows that where there is growth there is blood. So they arrive - often in uniform - to make certain they get their share - read ‘the most’ - of the new money. The last 12 months have seen regular raids on bars which follow an inevitable pattern that are in part put down to Uncle Sam’s campaign to eliminate Human trafficking. (as described in this article) But in reality it is much more to do with shakedowns than saving poor farm girls from evil. These busts do not have a direct effect on tourists - as long as they leave quietly when asked - unless their favourite LBFM happens to be taken away by the zealous policeman- then it might take a week or more for her to returnto sin city. But they are not making the bar owners any happier and the risk factor is rapidly getting into the price structure. Of course the cost of these neon advertised new palaces of entertainment also pushes up prices although on that front you still get 40% more in Pesos than Baht and the average Field’s price is about 100 Peso although the flashier places are now heading north of that whilst perimeter road is in the 60ish bracket.
The other group that have moved in - in truth were always there - are the rip off artists and villains. There have been several murders in the ex-pat enclave over the last year plus. Whilst most of these can be traced back to either a business dispute or the greed of a partner - both in business and in love - the odd one can go down to simple old fashioned theft. The next problem is the perpetrators seldom get caught. One suspects there is not a lot of enthusiasm when it comes to the plod - whether this is due to incompetence or by design is a matter of conjecture. But again these problems do not usually affect tourists in the main areas - as ever don’t walk down a dark street in the middle of the night. Perimeter Road is a busy secondary bar area by day but on the whole is closed by midnight - after that is not safe except by trike or motorbike. I live in a sub division - as our gated communities are called - with two guys with guns on the gate and razor wire on the walls - it fact it is pleasant enclave and perfectly safe inside as is riding home providing I am sensible, As I said the problems are being in business and having a wife - even if it is not her the Philippines inheritance laws will see that whatever your will says what is in the PI stays in the PI and your wife will almost certainly get control - unless you have left everything to your children and appointed suitable executors. The family will think they can manipulate the wife if you are out of the way - not dissimilar in the end to LOS and there have been well publicised cases of exactly that happening.
The other big change in AC is the growing importance of Koreans and to less extant other Asians particularly Malaysians. We the white faces are being eased out to make way for the wealthy elite of Asia - and there is similar trend in Thailand - at least we have not got the real crooks of the world here yet - the Russians - but I am not holding my breath.
No doubt many will be saying there I knew it Angeles City is best avoided - but in many ways it not dissimilar to Thailand - there is certainly a great deal less publicity of bad things in LOS where the fear of frightening off the tourists is always uppermost in many minds. Here nobody seems to care a monkeys -that is the Philippines through and through - nobody cares a damn as long as I they are alright.
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